Can I trust AI takeoff on a bid?
Use it as a first pass; confirm every line.
An AI takeoff is worth exactly what a fast, tireless, occasionally overconfident helper is worth: it gets you to a reviewable list in minutes instead of an evening, and it does not get to decide what goes in your bid.
What it is genuinely good at
Counting things that are drawn or scheduled. Receptacles, switches, lights, smoke detectors, fixtures, door and window openings. Those come off legends and schedules, and a machine reading every sheet does not skip page four because the phone rang.
It is also good at not getting tired on sheet twelve, which is where hand counts usually start drifting.
Where it gets you hurt
Anything derived rather than drawn. Wall area, insulation area, paint area, and roof area all depend on assumptions such as ceiling height and pitch, and if the sheet does not state them the honest answer is a low-confidence line with a note, not a confident number.
In Portravo those derived lines are handled explicitly. Every extracted line carries a confidence value, and a deterministic pass re-reads the line's own note and drops confidence to 0.35 and unlinks the assembly when the quantity contradicts the arithmetic in that note, so a line that argues with itself cannot price without a human. Area lines with no supporting arithmetic are capped at 0.55.
The rule that keeps it safe
Nothing prices until you confirm it. In the pricing engine only lines you marked confirmed or edited are expanded into materials and labor. Pending lines are counted and reported back to you as skipped, not quietly priced at the machine's guess.
That is the whole trade. You still own the quantity survey. What you save is the hours of counting, not the responsibility.
Review order for an AI takeoff
Work down this list and you will catch the expensive mistakes first.
- 01Sort by confidence and start at the bottom. The low-confidence lines are where the assumptions live.
- 02Read every line that carries a note. Notes are where an assumed ceiling height or pitch factor is declared.
- 03Check the three highest-dollar quantities against the sheet yourself, whatever their confidence.
- 04Look for what is missing. A takeoff can only count what is drawn, and demo, temp power and site work usually are not.
- 05Confirm or edit each line. Anything left pending does not price, and the estimate tells you it was skipped.
No account needed. Upload your plan PDF, pick the trades and pay $75 per trade; the takeoff starts right away. Your first takeoff has a 14-day money-back guarantee.
Upload plans and start- Does Portravo price a takeoff automatically?
- No. Only lines you have confirmed or edited are priced. Lines left pending are skipped and reported back to you, so the estimate can never contain a quantity no human agreed to.
- What happens to my plan set?
- Browser plan uploads accept PDFs up to 50 MB. API and assistant uploads are limited to 10 MB; use the browser upload for larger plans. Plans are stored privately and processed by service providers to produce your estimate. We do not use your plans to train our own models; AI providers handle data under their terms and configured settings. When project deletion succeeds, the project record is removed from your account, but storage cleanup can fail and related processing files may remain. Email hello@portravo.com for help. Applicable earlier commitments and legal rights remain unchanged.